Christmas Eve: Scrooge Edition
A few wonderings re Christmas Eve…
- I read multiple advertisements in today’s newspaper for churches’ “Traditional Candlelight Service.” Strange use of “traditional,” I bet. I don’t have the books with me to prove it, but I’m pretty sure candlelight services are a relatively new American tradition, certainly not more than 50 years old. Then again, in a church, it only takes doing something twice to become a tradition.
- If Christmas is all about celebrating Christ’s birth, then it seems to me that evening services on Christmas Eve celebrate it too early. With all the waiting of Advent, why can’t we manage to wait one more day and celebrate on Christmas Day? I’d understand a watch-night service, maybe, that went deep into the night and ended in celebrating the incarnation, but Christmas eve services jump the gun, if you will. Why isn’t our big Christmas celebration on Christmas Day?
- Let’s all make an effort to keep the Christmas celebration going through Epiphany, post-Christmas sales not withstanding.
- As I explored in my eschatological Advent sermon, I think its a good idea to keep eschatology in our minds and in our liturgy even on Christmas day. I think Mark Koenig does so well, saying:
On this night
bellies spasm with hunger
winter seeps into the bones of people with no homes
thoughts turn to Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and places between and beyond
people plot violence
children watch parents die of AIDS, wondering when their turn will come
relationships fray and come apart
children and women and men endure abuse
economic uncertainty undoes nations and households
walls divide people from their homes
nuclear sabers rattle and handguns bark
drugs surge through veins to allow escape from reality’s pain
death comes calling — sometimes welcome, sometimes not
sorrow and suffering spread around the world
trouble and turmoil touch us all
evil stalks the earthYet
in the midst of all that
in the face of all that
in spite of all that
because of all that
on this night,we gather
to sing
and pray
and read ancient words
and light candles
and celebrate again
the birth of a child —
— nothing more and nothing less
than the every day miracle —
except that this child — this Jesus —
tells us
teaches us
shows us
life does not have to be the way it is
but that it can be filled
with
hope and
faith and
grace and
sharing and
commitment and
community and
justice and
righteousness and
well-being and
wholeness and
peace . . .
. . . on earth . . .
. . . for all!Glory to God, may it be so.
image by Steve9091
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We can celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve because that’s when Christmas starts. For festivals, we use a traditional calendar which harks back to the Hebrew calendar where the day begins at sundown. At least that’s what they taught me at seminary. Of course I went to the liberal one.
But all those candles are so purty…
Joan, I like that explanation–or at least, it makes sense. I’m not sure I buy it since, functionally, we don’t celebrate other seasons or days similarly but if that’s the history, that’s good to know.
I think I learned this in seminary too, but, um, it didn’t stick. Sorry Dr. Long.
Just enjoy it, Ebenezer. Don’t let your Calvinism overshadow your time to celebrate.
And if you ever have to sit up into the wee small hours of the morning putting a doggone Barbie house together, you’ll be glad that you went to the Christmas Eve service beforehand….
If you are really going to be such a stickler, shouldn’t we be celebrating Christ’s birth in June (or whenever ‘scholars’ think he was actually born?) and not on a pagan festival that we syncretized?
I know that candlelight services are at least 40 years old, because Christmas Eve was the first service my parents took me to after I was adopted and my parents still talk about how quiet I was during the Silent Night/Candle montage. And what could possibly be more eschatological than light piercing the darkness?
Thanks for sharing the Mark Koenig piece.
Merry Christmas!
Dear Adam,
50 years seems a lot shorter to me than it does to you, although bless you for calling it “relatively new.” Midnight mass is a very long tradition on Christmas Eve, certainly predating electricity, which would make the candlelight “traditional” rather than new. In fact, now that I think about it, Christian churches that eschew candlelight at the late service on Christmas Eve should really bill those services as “contemporary.” I will have to make a note to speak to my pastor about that.
Ugh! Candles! Where I worship we have what I always felt is a backwards way of doing the candle thing. We spend all of Advent “waiting for the light”, being “lost in the night…” (my favorite Lutheran anthem, the 8 part version!) “longing for the light. All of these great visual images… Then on Christmas Eve we gather under blazing electric lights that we have to turn off to get the right look for the candle lighting at the END of the service. Isn’t this like waiting for the light at the Great Vigil of Easter? Why can’t we gather at the manger and see the tiny light that is the new baby and tyhen watching as that light becomes brighter, filling the whole world?
After we light the candles, with complaints that someone dripped wax on their hand because they did not read the directions, we quickly turn all of the electric lights back on so we do not create a safety hazzard as people leave the building. We even had someone complain, when at our second and third services, the “Traditional Candlelight ones, the assembly STOOD while we sang Silent Night. I was told that “you do not stand for that, it’s not right” I did not know that that was in the Directory for Worship or maybe in one of the minor prophets, Leviticus, Holiness Code?????
Ugh!!!!!!!!
I ended up unsatisfied with our Christmas eve service this year. It has become very rote — sing certain carols, read certain texts, light the candles, go home. I want a new model next year, but know I can’t shake things up too much.
I appreciate thoughts from Joan, Bob, and others. Thanks for your many posts, Adam. I think we Presbyterians adapted the midnight mass idea, moved it up to 5pm, made it protestant, and sanitized it in other ways. Also, Christmas Eve services give clergy and musicians time with their families on Christmas Day; and by Dec. 25, I was exhausted.
Thanks for all the conversation, folks. When I get back to Decatur I’m going to look into the historical details. I do think there’s some room to spice up said services without losing their shine. God may be pleased. More later.